Pulled from the Stairway
by SammaKlaus
Summary: After the defeat of the Pillar Men, Joseph Joestar is ready to move on with his life as a married man. However, a series of unexpected revelations says his work isn't quite finished, and one may even change the entire course of his future. JoJo and company embark on yet another adventure full of pre-war and supernatural intrigue with World War II just around the corner.
1. Prologue

Prologue-Switzerland 1938

Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli coughed weakly, tasting blood on his tongue immediately. That and the unbearable pain in his chest told him his lungs had been punctured, possibly by his own broken ribs. So many parts of his body hurt that he couldn't even register which ones they were. He hadn't expected to wake up at all. He'd thought he was already dead, but the oppressing weight on his back and the stinging pain told him he'd somehow survived the ceiling's collapse.

He would've been relieved to be alive if he wasn't so busy wishing he was dead. He couldn't move. He could barely think. His head was growing light and unfocused, either because of the blood loss or the absence of air in his lungs. He forced himself to suck in a painful, insufficient breath. He should have died.

"CAESAR!"

The voice was muffled by the tons of rock trapping him beneath the ceiling's debris, but he knew it well. JoJo! He hadn't expected him to come so soon. He'd been resigned to die, having given his friend all he could, but perhaps there was hope. Caesar struggled to bring in more air. He just needed enough to cry out.

There was another voice, calm and feminine. Master Lisa Lisa was there too. He couldn't hear what she was saying, but it brought him comfort just to know she was there. He clenched his teeth and put every hope he had into a desperate scream.

"Uhhf!"

Even to him, it barely sounded like a whimper. He had the will to live, but his body couldn't support it. It was broken and useless.

JoJo called again, this time his voice conveying the last thing he wanted to hear from him: the mournful cry of one who has lost a friend. Despite the physical pain he was in, hearing his friend's despair hurt more. He wasn't dead! He had to find a way to let them know. Even then he could tell the little oxygen that'd been trapped with him was depleting, even with his weak and haggard breaths being the only thing to sap it. He should have died when the ceiling collapsed on him! He didn't want to hear it, their losing him. It was too much to bear.

JoJo kept calling him. As much as he wanted to respond, his voice was no more than a sad squeak being absorbed by the stone and rubble around him. JoJo was crying. He didn't want that!

He could hear rustling. Again, hope filled his heart. Were they digging him out anyway? He hadn't expected that, not with Kars and Wamuu so nearby. Despite the danger, he hoped they would uncover him before he finally expired. He owed JoJo a goodbye, after what he'd last said to him.

No, that wasn't it at all. The rustling was becoming more distant, not getting closer. No, no, no, no! They were leaving him!

"Ehkh!"

The cry was even weaker than the first. NO!

"Jo-" he managed to gurgle before his throat filled with blood.

He forced the blood out with a cough and wheezed in another breath, reaching his hand out as far as his broken elbow would allow, wincing against the sting. His arm moved slower than he wanted it to. It was useless, he knew, but his spirit wouldn't allow him to give up. He grasped a handful of gravel and laboriously pulled it toward himself. Good. Only a few thousand more handfuls to go and he'd be free.

He inched his arm back out again. His body was begging him to stop, but he couldn't.

"Jo…Jo…"


	2. Chapter 1

London, England; July 1939

Joseph Joestar pressed his knee into the overstuffed suitcase he'd been helping to pack while his wife, Suzie Q, forced the container closed. Once it'd been fastened, they both stepped back and waited for it to spring open. It didn't. Joseph let out an exasperated sigh.

"Do you really need to bring all these things?" he asked, "you have ten scarves. How often do you really wear scarves?"

"You would have your wife walk around without a scarf to wear?" Suzie asked in what seemed like mock indignation, but there was also that part of her that seemed serious. He grimaced.

"They have clothing stores in New York. _Biiig_ stores."

"But these are _Italian_ - _crafted_ clothes, JoJo!"

"Clothes are clothes!"

"Don't be silly."

Joseph sighed again and watched her leave the room, no doubt to grab more things they "needed" to pack before leaving for America with his former master, who'd turned out to be his mother, Elizabeth. It still hadn't quite settled into his mind yet, the realization that he was no longer an orphan. He'd been one way for so long it was hard to imagine being anything different.

He glanced around the room and grinned impishly when he heard Suzie Q's footsteps heading his way. As soon as she entered, he leaned down and pulled a lacey black and white bra from between the two pillows on the bed they'd shared.

"Uh-oh," he teased, "you forgot one."

Suzie huffed at him and snatched it out of his hand.

"These are delicate," she argued, "they go in another bag."

" _Another bag_!?"

Joseph slapped his hand to his forehead. He was about to start yet another futile argument against luggage when the door chime sounded from the floor below. He sighed.

"Just try to finish packing before the week is up," he teased while walking past her and into the hallway.

He practically bounded down the stairs and up to the front door. When he opened it to see who'd come to visit, his eyebrows shot up interestedly. Although the man before him was wearing an unremarkable brown coat and black fedora, he recognized the face immediately. After all, it was hard to miss the large metal prosthetic and unblinking lens of an eye that'd taken the place of half of the man's face.

"Stroheim!" he exclaimed.

The German officer stuck a finger to his lips and glared at him.

"You know tensions are high, JoJo," he scolded him in a whisper. He lowered the finger. "War is just around the corner. I don't think we will see each other again after this last meeting."

"Right," Joseph replied, smiling guiltily, "in that case, you must have something important to tell us?"

"It's personal business," Stroheim answered, seeming almost appalled by his own words.

Joseph had always thought he took himself too seriously. He watched him reach into his coat to produce a beige folder with two small German words written on its corner.

"My duty to the Fatherland is paramount," Stroheim told him sternly, "but you have earned my respect as an ally, despite the political tension between our nations. I owed you this much." He offered the folder to him.

Joseph tried not to look too amused as he took it and flipped it open. He was greeted by a wall of text on what appeared to be some sort of official form.

"It's all in German," he muttered.

Stroheim reached out and turned the form over to reveal a rather hastily-translated English version of the same form.

"An autopsy report from Switzerland," he explained, "and a certificate of death."

Joseph's heart sank.

"Caesar."

The German nodded.

"Due to his status as a valued ally of Germany, I had his body recovered from the castle. He deserved a proper Catholic burial, and someone to keep his memory. Naturally I thought of you."

Joseph tried to keep his hands from shaking too much as he looked over the report, his face grim. He and Lisa Lisa had left Caesar's body behind. Their mission had been too important then, but he had always wished he could've given his dearest friend a good funeral. Perhaps it was enough that the Germans had thought the same, but he should've been there too.

"Thanks," he managed to say, "at least I know he's not in that damn castle anymore."

Stroheim nodded.

"I agree." He glanced toward the car waiting for him and the driver watching them patiently. "I'm sorry to leave so quickly, but I'm needed elsewhere and it is risky for me to remain in this country for long." Despite his location, the German saluted him quickly. "Be well, Herr Joestar."

Joseph didn't return the salute, but nodded his thanks nonetheless. He backed up and closed the door slowly, his eyes fixed on the contents of the folder he'd received. He'd never seen an autopsy report before. It seemed odd to him that he'd receive one at all; they all knew what'd killed Caesar.

Or perhaps not? Joseph's brow creased when he spotted what the German doctor had written as the cause of death. Suffocation? Joseph tossed the folder down on the end table by the door and took the clip off the small bundle of papers to flip to the next page.

"That's impossible!" he shrieked.

"Why are you so excited all of a sudden?"

Joseph glanced back toward the staircase to see Suzie watching him with her arms folded.

"You said you'd help me pack," she pouted coyly.

"N-nothing," Joseph replied, his eyes wandering back to the report on the table.

Suzie grinned.

"Are you hiding things from me?" she asked, her voice sweet and song-like, "it better not be a love letter."

To his surprise, Joseph's heart leapt and his prosthetic hand clicked shut of its own accord, crumpling the folder and its contents in a tight fist.

"No!" he pulled the folder free and slapped the certificate on the table as he attempted to smooth it out. "This isn't happening-!"

Suzie walked forward and looked down at the mess of crumpled paper. She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.

"Oh," she whispered, reaching down with her free hand to take the certificate. "Well, we can't go to America now," she stated, taking her hand from her mouth to touch the paper gently, "we have to go see him."

Joseph nodded and backed away from the table before he could cause any more damage to the little physical evidence he had of Caesar's existence. Suzie peered up at him.

"Are you alright?"

Joseph shook his head.

"He always called me an idiot," he murmured, "I didn't realize how right he was."

"You're not an idiot, honey."

Joseph groaned and backed himself against the wall before knocking his head against it in frustration and slapping his hands over his face.

"He was alive! He was alive and I left him! I should've known!"

Suzie only stared, shocked. Joseph pried his hands off his face and stared back at her.

"He was alive, Suzie!"

"You're not making any sense."

"Under the rubble! He was still alive! If I was just paying more attention I could've saved him!" Joseph snatched the autopsy report from the table. "It says it all right here," he cried, "he suffocated for ten minutes!"

Suzie gasped and the certificate toppled out of her hand.

"I…" Joseph continued, his voice diminished to a regretful whisper, "I let it happen. He gave me everything he had and I let him die."

Suzie met him quickly and wrapped her arms around his enormous frame.

"Caesar wouldn't blame you for something like that," she assured him in a soft murmur, "you said it yourself; you didn't know."

Joseph sighed the tension out of his breast and nodded.

"I know," he said, "and what's done is done. The least we can do is pay our respects…but it could be too dangerous to head to that part of Europe now."

Suzie released him and picked the certificate off the floor to look at it.

"What part of Europe?" she asked.

"Switzerland or Germany, I guess," Joseph replied. He gestured toward the certificate with his chin. "Doesn't it say?"

"It says 'unknown location'."

Joseph's brow furrowed and he looked over her shoulder at the slip of paper.

"It's handwritten, too," he murmured, "that's…"

"Wrong," Suzie concluded.

Joseph took the certificate and stuffed it back into the folder before snapping it closed. "Wrong" was the perfect word for it. The certificate might've been left unremarkably blank, but someone had very clearly written on it.

"I need to go back to Switzerland."

"What?" Suzie exclaimed, "but you just said it was too dangerous!"

Joseph held the folder aloft.

"Whoever wrote on this did it to tip me off! Something fishy's going on out there and I need to find out what, for Caesar's sake."

"How can you be so sure?" Suzie asked, "maybe it was a mistake."

"I've seen enough Germans to know this isn't how they operate."

Joseph snatched his jacket off the coat rack by the door and stuffed the folder inside it. Suzie sighed and watched him put the jacket on before rushing out the door. She grimaced and turned back toward the stairs, but stopped when the door opened again. Joseph spun her about and gave her a quick, but tender kiss.

"Don't worry about me," he told her, "I'll be back in no time."

[Next]

Joseph laid low on his stomach atop the green ridge he'd climbed to overlook the valley below. He almost didn't recognize it in the midst of the Swiss summer, without the layers of snow that'd covered it the last time he was there. Everything was a luxurious and cheery green, but it did little to raise his spirits. He doubted he could ever forgive the sight of the castle below him.

He could see the enormous hole in the wall, leading to the room where he'd seen his last glimpse of Caesar, that oozing stream of blood beneath the rock he'd thought had crushed him. To think his friend had been alive down there, trapped, soured his mood even further. He had to tell himself, again, that it wasn't his fault. The only thing he could've done differently was to dig the man he'd thought was already dead out from under a solid slab of stone, with the Pillar Men and their vampires still lurking nearby. Had he done that, things might not have ended in their favor.

Joseph looked to his right when he heard his old family friend, Robert E. O. Speedwagon, crawl up beside him, a pair of binoculars in hand. He handed them over and Joseph peered down at the structure below, zooming in on the hole just as two men in unremarkable clothing stepped out. One was carrying a can of paint, which the other used to draw a broad yellow X on the crumbling wall.

"They're dressed casual enough, but there's no reason for two guys to be painting X's on castle walls out here," he mumbled.

"Let me see."

Joseph handed the binoculars back and continued to watch the men curiously through squinted eyes.

"Yes, I agree," Speedwagon muttered while observing the pair, "and by the way they're carrying themselves, I'd say they're no average mountain peasants. They have the bearings of trained and drilled soldiers."

"German?"

"Too early to tell. We'll need to get closer."

Joseph put his hand on the top of the binoculars and pushed them away from the older man's face.

"We?" he whispered, "If they're Nazis, this is no place for an old man to go snooping around."

Speedwagon sighed at him.

"Isn't that why you're here?" he asked, "besides, if the Nazis really are tampering with anything even remotely related to the Pillar Men it's important that my Foundation knows about it."

"Why? It's not like they're still around. Can't the government handle it?"

Speedwagon smiled wryly.

"You think it'd be easy to convince the British parliament that the Germans are dabbling in supernatural forces proven to not only exist, but to have recently endangered the entire world only to be stopped by a couple of boys with magic powers?" He laughed to himself. "I'd be tossed in the asylum immediately. Without Von Stroheim's division on our side, the Speedwagon Foundation is our greatest ally against whatever the Germans are planning to do. "

Joseph groaned quietly.

"Then send some of your _younger_ agents or something," he argued, "do you know how much trouble I'd be in with Granny Erina if you got yourself killed out here?"

Speedwagon shrugged.

"It's just an old castle, JoJo. There aren't vampires or ancient gods in there anymore, just human men. I can handle men."

Joseph sighed in resignation and watched the two soldiers round the corner of the castle.

"Then let's go," he declared once they were out of sight.

He quickly hopped to his feet and hurdled over the ridge onto the hill's slope below. He allowed gravity and his momentum to carry him swiftly to the hill's base, where he slid to a stop in order to take a quick and cautious look in both directions. Satisfied he was still relatively alone, he rushed over to the hole, where he slapped his back against the wall beside it before turning to peek inside. Empty. He wished he knew if that was a good or bad sign.

He heard Speedwagon come up beside him, then a sharp metallic click. He looked back to see the old man brandishing a pistol. He cocked an eyebrow at him.

"What?" Speedwagon asked.

Joseph shrugged.

"Nothing, nothing."

He stepped through the wall's hole just as he had the first time. As much as he wanted to suppress them, memories of that time began to flood back like the worst kind of déjà vu. Some of the rubble had been cleared away by the Germans, which made the entry easier, but it wasn't long before he spotted the stone itself. Broken into three smaller pieces, it no longer resembled a giant slab of a cross but the hints of old, dried brown blood told him enough. He grimaced and looked away.

In the spot where Caesar had met his end was a cracked indentation in the otherwise solid stone floor. The basement was beneath them, he knew, which explained the partial collapse in the wake of the violent fight that'd killed his best friend. There, the old blood smears were larger and more pooled. The dip in the ground was proof enough that Caesar could have survived the ceiling's collapse, only to suffocate beneath the weight of the stone. The thought of it made Joseph sick to his stomach. He roared in frustration and kicked one of the smaller stones against the far wall.

Caesar himself was gone, as Stroheim had told him, but there was no indication of where he might've been moved.

"We ought to try keeping it down," Speedwagon commented as he looked over the scene.

"Sorry," Joseph hissed, although it wasn't entirely true. He focused on the fact that Caesar's death had been properly avenged; he was in no position to go losing his temper. Still feeling a little pouty about it all, he stepped over the stones and toward the stairs. "Let's just figure out what the Nazis want with this place and get out of here."

Joseph took the lead as he and Speedwagon carefully made their way up the crumbling stairs and further into the dark structure. Once they were away from the natural light provided by the large opening in the previous room, Speedwagon clicked on a flashlight and they continued slowly through the damp, rotting halls. They stopped when the light beam landed on a painted yellow X. A stick of dynamite wired to a radio receiver was fastened directly on top of it.

"Yikes," Joseph muttered under his breath, "these guys aren't messing around."

"They're going to blow the whole building," Speedwagon concluded, the urgency in his voice growing considerably, "they're trying to cover something up by destroying the evidence! There's no other explanation."

"This place is falling apart. I'd want to blow it up too." Joseph sighed and looked back. "Anyway, if there was anything to find here I'm sure they already moved it. I say we grab those two and ask them about it."

Speedwagon sighed.

"We've only just started searching. Don't you think we should be a little more thorough than that?"

"Sure, but what can a bunch of stone walls tell us that the guys trying to blow it up can't?"

"So, you speak German?"

Joseph turned around to look back at him and frown excessively. His frown deepened when he spotted the two guns pointed in their direction from the end of the hall.

"So, that thing you said about keeping it down?" he murmured out of the corner of his mouth, "we probably should've done that."

As soon as Speedwagon turned to look back, one of the rifles clicked as its bearer cocked it.

"Don't move," one of the men ordered, his accent thick. Whether it was Swiss or German wasn't apparent to Joseph's inexperienced ear.

"Ahh," Joseph breathed nervously, "goo-den tag!"

"Papers, now."

"What is 'papers'? _No spre-ken zee English_!"

"Even I know that was awful," Speedwagon whispered hoarsely.

By then, the two men had closed the distance between them and it was plain to see they were far from amused.

"Papers, or you're dead!"

Joseph groaned and whipped his leg up to kick the barrel of the first man's rifle far from its mark while grabbing the other and twisting it from the second man's grip. Encouraged by the looks of shock on their faces, he swiftly punted the nearest of the two into the wall and grabbed the other by his face before throwing him to the ground with a mighty heave. Grinning proudly, he picked the stunned and frightened man off the floor, holding him by the collar of his coat. He shook the man just enough to rattle him, then glared at him menacingly.

"What're the Germans planning?" he demanded, "where's Caesar!?"

"What!?"

Speedwagon sighed again.

"JoJo, you should _ease_ into an interrogation," he suggested quietly, "I doubt a grunt like him would even know who Caesar was."

"Then I'll settle for the plans part," Joseph grumbled, shaking the man again.

"I know nothing!" he squealed, "let me go!"

"Don't lie to me! Why are you going to destroy this place? What are you trying to hide?"

"Orders! Only orders! Please don't hurt me!"

Speedwagon walked over to them and showed his pistol very clearly to the man.

"Who gave you the orders?" he asked.

Joseph nodded and glared at the soldier he held.

"H-here!" the soldier stuttered, reaching into his coat.

Joseph grunted and raised his fist.

"No, no! It's not a weapon, I swear!"

The enormous Englishman narrowed his eyes at the smaller man, but allowed him to dig into an inner pocket in order to produce a telegram.

"This is all I know," the soldier whispered timidly, "now, please, let me go."

Joseph snatched the paper from him and tossed him aside before taking a look at it. He didn't know why he'd expected it to be otherwise, but the entire thing was printed in German. He groaned loudly.

"What does it say?" he demanded.

Instead of answering the soldier looked to his left. Joseph looked as well to see the second of the pair press a button on what looked like…a radio transmitter.

Joseph shouted in alarm and launched himself into Speedwagon, knocking the older man away from the wall. An instant later, the dynamite blew, sending the ceiling down in a rain of debris. Joseph scrambled to his feet, grabbed Speedwagon's suit jacket by the lapel and started running as the hall began to crumble around them. He leapt through the doorway into the next room, a violent plume of dust bursting after him as the remainder of the hallway disappeared into a pile of rock.

Joseph released Speedwagon and coughed, waving the dust away from his mouth and nostrils. He could hear rumbling in other parts of the castle as well. They might've interrupted the soldiers' charge planting, but clearly enough had been placed to cause serious damage. He looked back.

"That was our way out," he grumbled.

The old man stumbled to his feet and nodded.

"This building isn't going to last long after a blast like that."

Joseph grabbed the flashlight from him and directed its beam toward a couple of narrow light rays that disturbed the otherwise inky darkness. A window! It was boarded up, but they hardly had time to be picky about it. He tossed the flashlight back and ran to the window. He rammed his shoulder into the old boards, splintering them, and jumped back to try it again, then again. At last, the wood gave way and he toppled outward. He yelped in surprise and grabbed the window sill before he could tumble back-first into the dirt below. Speedwagon reached forward to grab his free hand and helped him pull himself back in.

"This is probably going to hurt," Joseph warned him.

As if they needed more to worry about, the floor in the center of the room caved in, leaving them with a large hole and some very unstable bricks to stand on. The old man was forced to jump forward against the wall when the one beneath his feet started to teeter downward. Joseph grabbed his bicep.

"Sorry," he chirped lightly before tossing him out the window.

Joseph hopped over the sill and out into the open air, his scarf flying wildly as he plummeted toward the ground. He rolled over his shoulder as he landed, but slipped and wound up on his side. He grunted uncomfortably as he propped himself up on his elbows to watch the castle vanish into a cloud of smoke and debris behind them. Relieved, he let his upper body fall back down into the grass, his face plopping into a soft green tuft.

When he heard Speedwagon groan, he pulled his face off the ground and hopped back on his feet. He rushed over to where the older man had landed and knelt beside him.

"You're okay, right?" he asked nervously, "nothing broken?"

Speedwagon groaned again and looked up at him.

"I think not." He slowly pushed himself up, aided by Joseph. "But I think I've had enough excitement for one lifetime," he concluded once he was sitting upright.

Joseph released a sigh of relief and leaned back on his rear to sit. He opened his hand to extract the crunched telegram and straightened it out.

"So, what do we do with this, then?" he wondered aloud.

Speedwagon gestured toward the nearest mountain.

"I had a group of my people secure a hunting lodge further up," he replied, "with luck, one of them might be able to translate it for us."

"Might?" Joseph repeated.

The old man let out a long sigh.

"We're in Switzerland, JoJo," he breathed, "if they can't someone can."


	3. Chapter 2

Joseph took in a deep breath of mountain air as soon as they'd reached the top of the sloped walking path. The lodge was there, small and natural-looking with its log walls and forest green door. A nondescript truck had been parked outside. Although it lacked the typical Speedwagon Foundation logo, Joseph had seen enough of their vehicles to know it was one of them. He looked back to watch the old man himself trail after him.

"Need a rest?" he teased.

Speedwagon gestured ahead.

"Just head inside."

Joseph shrugged and headed up the three wooden stairs that led to the deck before peeking inside through the large window facing the valley. He grinned when he spotted a rather beautiful woman in a red scarf and sunglasses talking to a group of men. As if she could sense him watching, she turned to face him and cocked an eyebrow. Joseph waved and proceeded inside.

" _Mom_ ," he greeted her with a cheeky smile, opening his arms for a hug he knew wasn't going to come.

Lisa Lisa nodded at him.

"Hello, JoJo," she replied, "you seem well for someone who just destroyed a bit of Swiss history."

Joseph crossed his arms over his chest.

"It was an eye sore." He came to meet her and the men he assumed were from the Foundation in the center of the room. "But I didn't expect you to show up," he continued, "Caesar was your student, sure, but it doesn't seem like you to come all this way to find his body."

"This isn't just about Caesar," Lisa Lisa told him matter-of-factly, "it seemed very clear to me that Major Von Stroheim traveled all the way to London to give you a very serious warning. If someone as loyal as him waves a red flag on his own country, the situation must be dire."

Joseph shook his head.

"How do you know he was waving anything?" he asked critically, "what if he was just being nice?"

"You were the one insisting we had to come here a few days ago," she reminded him, "I hope you're not just concerned this mess with the Nazis will distract us from searching for Caesar's grave. It could be much more important than that."

Joseph opened his mouth, shut it again, and grunted indignantly.

"Tch. _No_."

Lisa Lisa cocked her eyebrow again.

"Alright, then." With that, she proceeded past him to approach Speedwagon, who handed her the telegram they'd taken from the men in the castle. "We found a small train station a few hours from here," she informed him, "it looked like it might've been abandoned once, but there are clearly marked soldiers guarding it now. I can only assume these two events are connected somehow."

"Hopefully, their orders will give us a hint," Speedwagon agreed.

She looked back, extending the telegram to one of the Foundation men, who took it and pursed his lips thoughtfully as he read it.

"Roughly?" he began, "it says 'send last samples' and 'destroy source'. Then, it mentions a train that's meant to leave tonight at eighteen hundred hours."

"Let me guess: we head there next?" Joseph asked lightly.

Speedwagon reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a watch and flipped it open.

"We don't have much time," he informed them, "if they keep to their schedule, the train will leave in just over three hours."

Lisa Lisa nodded.

"Let's go."

[Next]

Joseph and his mother quickly hopped off the back of the Speedwagon truck, allowing it to speed off. They'd agreed to have the Foundation members watch the train from a safe distance, while the two Joestars got a closer look.

Joseph followed Lisa Lisa closely as they left the road behind and crossed a field of tall grass to climb up a hill on the far side. From the top, they could see the train station a few meters from where they were crouched. The tall grass and dying light kept them from attracting the attentions of the uniformed German soldiers patrolling around the station and the short train on its track. The train itself was unmarked and its cars were clearly for cargo alone, lacking any windows that might've given them a hint at what might be aboard.

After waiting for a two-man patrol to pass them, the pair rushed across the short clearing between the hill and the station. They reached the back wall and slipped behind a stack of decaying wooden crates leftover from the station's heyday. Joseph hunkered low to hide his abnormal height from any watchful eyes while his mother plotted their way to the train. She looked back at him and pointed to one of the cars a short distance away, its door wide open. He nodded. Once another patrol had passed them, they ran to the car and climbed in through the open door.

The Joestars kept away from the opening while looking over the cargo. There was very little inside, including two small crates stacked atop each other and one very large one toward the back. They hid behind the large one when the sound of feet falling in the gravel outside started to get closer. Someone stopped by the open car door and placed another box inside, followed by someone else with another box of the same size. Their arms unloaded, they slid the car door shut and conversed in German as they walked away.

"Was going for a train ride part of the plan?" Joseph whispered.

"What plan?" Lisa Lisa replied, leaving the cover of the crate.

Joseph shrugged.

"Fair enough."

He proceeded to the stack of two crates and lifted the lid of the topmost, which hadn't been nailed down like he thought it might've been. He got a book of matches from his coat pocket and lit one to get a better look at its contents while his mother inspected the larger box.

Joseph's chosen crate was packed carefully, full of small glass bottles containing some kind of red liquid tucked between layers of soft cloth. He plucked one out and shook it, but it didn't do anything interesting. Frowning, he held it up to the match's light. Its color was deep crimson, like that of blood. A lot of blood. He held it in Lisa Lisa's direction.

"What do you think this is?" he asked.

She looked back to see what he was holding, then came to meet him, her eyebrows raised in interest. She took the bottle from him and rolled it around in her hand, watching the liquid flow with the motion. It was clearly thicker than water, another hint that made Joseph think "blood". But if it was blood and all the small crates were full of the same bottles, it would mean the Nazis had drained several people to collect it all.

"It's not blood, right?" he asked, unnerved by the notion.

"It has the same properties," Lisa Lisa murmured in reply, "but we wouldn't know for sure unless we were to test it."

SLAM!

Startled, Lisa Lisa gasped, dropped the bottle, and spun around to face the large crate. Joseph watched it, too. Nothing appeared to have changed about it, but it sounded as if something had banged on it. Another slam, definitely from the direction of the crate. In fact, it sounded like it was coming from inside it. Lisa Lisa and Joseph exchanged wary glances, then started toward it.

They were but a step from making contact with the crate when its side blasted outward, pelting them both with splinters and larger bits of wooden shrapnel. A hand protruded from the opening, its knuckles bloodied. The Joestars watched as the hand planted itself on the crate's side and the elbow its arm was attached to bent as someone pried themselves out of the box at a creeping, painful-looking rate. A head emerged, that of a young woman with curly black hair.

Joseph hissed in pain when the flame of his match met his fingertips and he dropped it. He lit a second one as quickly as he could. The renewed light showed the woman already halfway out of the box, both her hands palm-down on the train car's floor and her long hair draped over her head, caressing the planks as she continued to pull herself out. Suddenly, her face whipped around to look at them, her neck twisting unnaturally in a way that left her head completely backwards on her body.

Joseph's hand slapped to his cheek in alarm.

"Holy shit!" he exclaimed.

The woman's lips parted in a wide smile, revealing her sharp fangs. A vampire! Before either of the Joestars could react, another pair of hands appeared at the edges of the hole in the crate's side, followed by the pale face of an undead child whose eyes stared at them from drooping sockets. He hissed at them through his clenched teeth. _Hungry_ vampires.

The floor underneath them jolted as the train began to roll down the tracks. Joseph touched the lit match to the rest of the book and dropped it on the floor, freeing his hands just as the child leapt over the woman. He launched himself in Joseph's direction. The young man dodged while exhaling deliberately, feeling the touch of his Hamon and directing it into his fists. The tiny vampire dashed at him and he smacked it hard in the jaw, releasing his energy into its body. The young vampire went down easily. Despite himself, he felt sorry for the child.

Joseph glanced back toward his mother just as she gracefully avoided a swipe from the lady vampire's sharpened fingernails with an effortless pivot. Lisa Lisa quickly turned the pivot into a spin with her arm extended to chop the woman in the back of the neck. The vampire screeched as the Hamon master's energy began to eat away at her body.

Nonetheless, she was able to turn around and attempted to bite her shoulder. Lisa Lisa allowed the woman's teeth to make contact with her scarf. Too late to save herself, the woman realized it'd been charged with Hamon. The vampire's face began to disintegrate, and as soon as the decay met her cranium, her body collapsed.

Joseph let out a tense breath, amazed by the idea of Nazis carelessly keeping undead monsters in a simple wooden crate. The light being produced by the ignited matchbook quickly began to die. As if the dark wasn't a problem enough, Joseph heard more rustling in the direction of the crate.

"How many did they stuff in that thing!?" he cried incredulously.

Lisa Lisa looked up, then pointed toward the ceiling. Joseph looked as well and saw a hatch leading outside. Although it was dim, there were still hints of light filtering through the crack between the hatch and its frame. Joseph leapt up and caught the lip of the frame. Holding himself up with one hand, he used the other to undo the latch and push the hatch open. The orange light of the setting sun poured through. He held his free hand out for his mother to grab. Once her grip was secure, he threw her up to the hatch so she could grab the edge and climb out onto the top of the train car.

Joseph yelped when someone grabbed his leg. He looked down to see a male vampire with a firm hand on his boot and grimaced. He flung his legs upward to slam the creature into the ceiling and quickly slung his arm over the hatch's opening once it'd released his foot. He climbed his way out into the open and closed the hatch behind him, letting out a sigh.

"These Nazis have weird tastes in pets," he grumbled over the sound of wind rushing past the speeding train.

Lisa Lisa nodded and pointed toward the front.

"We need to get back inside one of the cars," she told him, "if we can remain undetected, they might take us straight to their commander."

"What about Uncle Speedwagon and the others?" Joseph asked.

"If they're smart, they'll keep their distance," she replied, "but I have a feeling they might try to follow us." She edged past him and walked to the end of the car. "Come on."

Joseph nodded and followed her when she leapt from their car to the next, then to the next. She stopped and looked back.

"This should be far enough from the vampires for now," she said, "make sure there aren't any large crates in this one."

Joseph proceeded to the car's hatch while his mother kept an eye on the one they'd emerged from. He yanked it open, breaking the latch in the process, and stuck his head inside to see more of the small crates, but none large enough to hold a human body. He pulled his head out again.

"This one's clear."

Lisa Lisa turned around and came to meet him. He helped her down, then slipped inside, allowing the hatch to close after him.


	4. Chapter 3

Having spent the train ride picking at a splinter in the wooden door of the car, Joseph had made himself a workable peek hole by the time the train began to slow to a stop. He watched as a group of men escorted by two armed Nazi soldiers made their way to the first car, two cars ahead of their own, pushing a flat cart. He could hear them moving around up there, no doubt unloading the crates within.

He glanced around what he could see of the station to notice it was heavily guarded, to the point where there wasn't a civilian in sight. Each soldier wore their Nazi markings proudly, some with swastikas on bright red armbands that stood out against the dark backdrops of their uniforms. They were in hostile territory, alright.

"So we need a plan to get out of here," he said quietly, "there are Nazis all over the place. Where _are_ we?"

"Germany, I would estimate," Lisa Lisa replied calmly, "we were moving long enough to make it that far, but I'm not sure how fast we were going."

"We probably shouldn't ask anyone, hm?" Joseph joked.

"We don't need to," his mother stated, as if it were obvious, "we follow the crates. Our goal is wherever they end up."

"Yes, yes, yes," he mumbled to himself while watching the soldiers move back and forth, left and right, covering every inch of the station with their watchful gazes and loaded rifles. "Ah!" he exclaimed hoarsely after a brilliant idea arrived in his head, "we can ambush the loaders and take their clothes!"

"Enough of the jokes, JoJo."

"No, I'm serious. It takes them a while to load that cart so if we're fast and careful we can—"

"You're taller than most men and I'm a woman," Lisa Lisa pointed out patiently, "they would notice the switch."

Joseph groaned to himself. _He_ still thought it would work, but only if she was onboard with the plan.

"I should've brought a gun," he murmured.

"We have all the tools we need here," she replied, running her fingers along the topmost of a stack of crates.

"Fists and Hamon against a train station's load of soldiers with guns?" he asked incredulously, "I thought _I_ was supposed to have all the bad ideas." He snickered at himself.

"Just hide. We need to wait for them to come inside."

Several minutes passed while Joseph and Lisa Lisa waited in the pitch black with only the sounds of the Germans' rummaging through the other cars to clue them in as to how close they were. At last, the latch on the outside lifted and the door slid open with a loud creak. Moonlight flooded the car, save for where the crate stacks' shadows kept the two Joestars out of sight; Lisa Lisa with her back to the one stack and Joseph crouched low behind the taller stack on the other side. The woman reached back and touched the crate behind her just as a loader put his hands on either side of it to lift it.

A spark tingled out of her fingertips and spilled into the metal lining that reinforced the otherwise wooden box. Joseph watched the spark zip around the corner, carried by the conductive metal. The German yelped when the Hamon spark jumped into his hand, bouncing him backward and onto the floor. The crate fell from his grip and crashed down, the bottles inside shattering with a loud crunch. Thick red fluid quickly oozed out of the gap left by the lid, which sat ajar on the floor.

" _Scheiβe_!"

Joseph knew that word well enough. He looked to Lisa Lisa questioningly, still unable to figure out what her plan could possibly be.

Suddenly, a crack and a shout of alarm. German voices sounded out from all over the station, joined by the clapping of their fine boots on the cement floor outside. Soon, the soldiers opened fire, but not at them. Lisa Lisa tapped Joseph on the shoulder as she passed him to step out into the open. He followed her to see the Germans were all outside and distracted by something that frightened them considerably.

The Joestars hopped out of the train car, slipping past the loaders and their escorts. Joseph looked to see wide-eyed, crazed vampires spilling out of the train cars to attack the Nazis. Careful to avoid attracting the attentions of the monsters, Lisa Lisa led him across the short dirt gap between the tracks and the station's platform. They leapt up onto the cement and dashed into the station's main building, which had been vacated in the chaos.

"Why would they have so many monsters so poorly secured!?" Joseph exclaimed in a whisper as he watched one of the vampires rip the head off a stunned soldier with its bare hands.

"They starved them into hibernation," Lisa Lisa explained, cool and casual as ever despite the gory spectacle, "it would have been safe, if the smell of blood hadn't awoken them. Vampires will go dormant to avoid starving to death, but they awake quickly once food presents itself. While it makes them dangerous for the average human, they're crazed and not thinking as logically as they might otherwise. They can be easily baited and destroyed in this state."

"How do you know that!?"

"Did you think I would devote my life to fighting the creatures without first learning their weaknesses and strengths? Clearly, the Nazis were aware of this defense mechanism as well."

Joseph grinned and touched his finger to his jaw.

"But they still shipped them with crates of free blood! They were forced into it, then. They didn't have the time to be more careful."

"I came to the same conclusion. Very good, JoJo."

Joseph's grin grew and he shrugged proudly.

"Not all of my ideas are bad ones," he quipped.

The grin vanished when he heard the engine of a nearby truck rev into action. He pointed urgently toward the window, where a military truck with a canvas canopy was starting to roll away.

"That truck!" he cried, "I saw them putting the crates on it!"

"Go!" Lisa Lisa exclaimed.

They rushed outside through the open window and ran after the truck as it started its way down the road toward what appeared to be a military blockade, keeping civilians from accessing the train station. The soldiers guarding it were already rushing to join the fight against the vampires. Unfortunately, it meant they were running in their direction. Although their eyes were on the station beyond them, they wouldn't be able to avoid noticing the peculiarly- dressed English people if they got too close.

Joseph clenched his teeth and sprinted after the truck at full speed. The truck was speeding up, too. He let out an exasperated growl and jumped with all the strength in his legs, his arm extended as far as he could get it.

His fingers slapped the edge of the truck's bumper and he grabbed on before it could slip away. The bulk of his body flopped into the dirt road and the truck began to drag him behind it as he tried, with no success, to get his other hand on the bumper.

He looked up when a red scarf whipped around the latch of the tailgate and tightened securely before hardening, strengthened by his mother's Hamon. Lisa Lisa pulled herself over the tailgate and freed her scarf before she turned around and offered her hand to him. He took it, trying not to let his pride take too much of a hit.

Joseph quickly climbed into the truck's bed and looked back. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw the first soldier run past, having failed to spot them before they could conceal themselves under the tarp canopy. He immediately sucked in a tense breath when he spotted someone else chasing after the truck, gaining on them rapidly. _No Nazi runs that fast_ , he thought.

He backed up a few steps, then turned to face the tailgate head on, waiting for the vampire to get close enough to strike. The creature leapt after the truck, practically flying through the air with its superhuman speed and strength to aid it. It landed solidly on the bumper, with both hands gripping the tailgate, then grinned hungrily at him, baring its fangs. Joseph calmed his nerves and breathed deeply as he'd been taught by his mother in Italy, preparing to launch the creature back into the night.

The vampire started to climb into the truck, but jolted suddenly when a rifle shot rang out and a bullet buried itself in the back of its skull. The monster fell forward and landed face-first in the truck bed. Joseph quickly knelt low, hoping whoever had nailed it so efficiently hadn't spotted him as well. His eyes widened when he saw the faint glow in the vampire's bullet wound, the glow of Hamon. He looked to Lisa Lisa and pointed at it. The woman shook her head, her face revealing a rare perplexity.

Joseph looked back toward the opening and waited, but no one fired on the truck again. He crept forward, stepping over the vampire's body, and peered out toward the station. It was small as a children's toy, then, and the only soldiers close enough to have killed the vampire were the ones from the blockade, who had already begun to engage the monsters at the train.

"It's like the bullet was infused with Hamon," he mused curiously, "is that even possible?"

"Metal can conduct it, but not store it," Lisa Lisa replied, "either the man who shot the beast was a fellow Hamon user or the Germans are much further along in their research than we were aware of. However, seeing as they wanted Caesar to help them, I doubt they have access to their own users."

Joseph turned around and looked toward the front of the truck.

"I guess we'll find out when we get wherever we're going," he murmured.

[Next]

The truck eased to a stop after several hours of travel. Having started to doze off, Joseph slapped himself and sat up. Looking over the tailgate he could see they'd traveled into a forested area, disturbed only by the dirt road they were traveling on. Lisa Lisa gestured for him to join her in the back and he complied with a soft, but tired sigh. Soon, he heard a gate open and the truck proceeded through, past a fence lined with barbed wire. The further in they went, he started to spot watch towers with armed sentries. On either side of the road were vast fields of dirt, cleared of trees. Despite the efforts to conceal them, he could see small lumps in the dirt. A minefield, perhaps.

After following the road's few gentle curves the truck stopped beside a small, unremarkable cement building with practically nonexistent windows. Joseph drew himself back behind the cargo when he saw someone come around the corner of the truck. The tailgate opened and he heard a man climb inside. He peeked around the corner of the crates to see him hand one down to another man waiting on the ground. They probably weren't going to get out that way.

Joseph carefully reached over to where the canvas covering the truck's bed met its side and lifted it gently with one finger to peek outside. There weren't any guards around the truck itself, just standing in the towers in the distance. Perhaps they figured the minefield was protection enough, if anyone managed to slip past the towers. He tried to look toward the back of the truck, where the two men were unloading it, but he couldn't see more than a single foot beside a wheeled cart. He looked backward and gestured to his mother, who came to join him by the truck's side. She peered outside, then nodded to him.

Joseph glanced back toward the two men, who were still unaware of the two stowaways hiding behind the truck's cargo. The one in the truck made plenty of noise as he moved the crates, letting the bottoms grate against the tops of the boxes underneath them. As he carelessly carried them, the glass bottles inside knocked against each other, albeit not hard enough to break. It was enough noise to cover their escape, if they hurried.

The Joestars waited for the man to turn his back on them before lifting the canvas enough for Lisa Lisa to slide out underneath it and land silently on the ground below. Joseph turned away and crept up behind the crate stack nearest to the truck's rear end, where he waited.

The man in the truck returned to the stack to grab the topmost of the boxes and slide it off. Once he had it in his arms, he found himself looking at Joseph's chest. His brow creased in confusion as he looked up to locate the larger man's face. Joseph grinned at him and waved before clenching his hand into a fist and ramming it into the poor man's jaw.

The man outside let out a "huh?" before putting his hands on the truck bed to peer inside. He yelped when Lisa Lisa popped up behind him and slapped a hand over his mouth. She used the hand on his face to spin him around and her other hand to jab her fingers into his neck, right in the windpipe. He backpedaled into the truck's bumper, gasping but unable to call for help. Joseph jumped over the crate stack and kicked him in the head, knocking it against the truck's hard side. Lisa Lisa caught him before he could fall to the ground and her son helped her stow him in the truck with his friend.

The way relatively clear, Joseph hopped out of the truck bed and followed her to the only door in the boring cement surface of the bunker. It was metal and equally boring. To his relief and surprise, it was also unlocked.

"This feels…strange," Joseph muttered, "and I don't just mean the vampires and Hamon bullets."

Lisa Lisa nodded her agreement, but proceeded inside nonetheless. The room was undecorated and lit by one bulb hanging from the ceiling. In the center of the room was a square of floor separated from the rest by its composition: metal rather than concrete. Aside from the single gray button on the wall, it was the only notable feature.

"I expected…more?" Joseph wondered aloud.

Lisa Lisa proceeded forward several feet until she was standing atop the metal section of floor and gestured for him to follow her. When he complied, she looked back at him and pressed the button on the wall. Joseph felt the floor beneath him jolt and widened his stance to stabilize himself as they continued to sink into the floor, further and further underground. Soon, the light from the bulb above them was just a small ray in the darkness around them. Joseph looked down, wondering how far the lift would go and what might await them at the base.

"Be on your guard," Lisa Lisa warned him, "if the amount of blood on the train is any indication, the Nazis will have plenty of monsters at their disposal."

"And they'll owe us plenty of explanations," Joseph concluded.


	5. Chapter 4

The lift grated to a halt, making Joseph wince at the sound. Luckily, the room they'd arrived in was empty, aside from another lonely bulb and an unremarkable door. If it hadn't been for the gate and the minefield above them, he would've never imagined this place was anything important; it was too _boring_.

"I never thought the Germans would be so bland," he muttered.

Lisa Lisa stepped off the lift and went to the door to check if it was locked. It wasn't. Again, Joseph's instincts sent warning signals racing through his mind as she cracked it open to peer into the hall on the other side.

"There's no way it's this easy," he whispered, "I mean, isn't this supposed to be some sort of military facility? The soldiers, the truck, the watchtowers, the minefield? It doesn't seem right."

"Perhaps we're expected," his mother replied quietly, calm despite the implications her words carried.

"You don't think Stroheim would've set a trap for us, do you?"

"I won't pretend to know him that well, but he doesn't seem the type to me. They might've discovered we were coming by different means." She silently closed the door again to look back at him. "Speedwagon and his people, perhaps."

"Uncle Speedwagon would never betray us to a bunch of Nazis," Joseph argued indignantly.

"Of course not," Lisa Lisa breathed, seeming to be equally appalled by the idea, "but if they were captured in Switzerland, they might know of the Foundation's connection to us."

"Well, we can't just leave," Joseph groaned, "we have to find out what the Nazis are doing with these vampires!"

"We're not leaving yet," Lisa Lisa assured him before opening the door to step out of the room.

Joseph followed her, hunched over even though it probably wouldn't do them any good if someone were to spot them. Despite his size, he was able to walk almost as quietly as his silent mother as they quickly made their way down the long length of hall that preceded the first door leading away from it. Luckily, it had a small, blurry window at about head height. Lisa Lisa looked inside, then looked back and nodded at him.

They proceeded into the room on the other side to see what appeared to be a telegraph office that'd been left unattended. There were no telegrams left behind for them to snoop through, but a metal tray with an abundance of white ashes in it hinted at where those messages might've gone. Just when Joseph was starting to think the underground facility had been vacated like the castle in Switzerland, they heard something clatter in the next room, which was separated from the one they occupied by a simple wooden door.

The two Joestars looked about frantically for a place to hide before rushing behind the desk that held the telegraph machine. It wasn't nearly as good a hiding place as either of them would've wanted, but it was too late to rethink it. The doorknob turned quickly and a man strolled in, wearing what seemed to be crisp uniform boots by the sound his footfalls made on the concrete floor.

They heard the man mutter something to himself, sounding far from pleased, before striking a match and dropping it into the metal tray. Without lingering to watch it burn, the man swiftly strode back into the other room. Joseph spun round and got up on his knees to look onto the desk's surface, where he could see what was being burned. Unfortunately, the few words still legible were in German. He didn't know why he expected it to be otherwise.

"Mitt-rr-stan-test-rrgeb?" he whispered slowly.

Lisa Lisa's brow furrowed in confusion and she turned around to take a peek for herself.

"… _mit ersten testergeb-_ ," she read quietly, "with first test…" She let the phrase trail off and shook her head. "The rest of the word is gone, but I think we might be in a laboratory. This could be referring to an experiment."

"You speak German?"

"I learned a little from your father during the Great War, but it's been a while."

"So, they're collecting vampires to experiment on them?" Joseph surmised.

"Perhaps." Lisa Lisa took her eyes off the desk and looked toward the door to the next room. "But to what end? Vampires are deadly enough as they are."

"Not to us," Joseph muttered before really thinking it through. He raised an eyebrow and looked at her. "Not to us!" he repeated.

"Shh!" she hushed him quietly, "don't jump to conclusions. There aren't enough Hamon users left in the world to pose a real threat to any German vampire army. They must have something else in mind."

" _Vampire army_?" he asked incredulously, "isn't _that_ jumping to conclusions?"

"I suppose you're right," she admitted, "we need more information to go on."

"Well, let's go ask someone, then," he murmured impatiently before standing up and stepping out from behind the desk. He'd expected her to stop him, but she didn't. Perhaps she was getting as tired of mysteries as he was.

Joseph brazenly approached the door before forcing it open with a determined kick. The man inside, who'd been flipping through a drawer full of files before the Englishman's sudden arrival, yelped in surprise and turned around to face him. Joseph planted a large hand over his mouth and shook him violently by his head.

"No screaming, now," he warned him, "the only things coming out of your mouth should be answers to my questions, understand?" He carefully released the German's head.

The telegraph officer jumped toward the nearest of the many file cabinets in the room and snapped a pistol off its top. Joseph groaned and knocked it out of his hand before he could get a firm grip on it. He grabbed the officer's coat collar and shook him again.

"What's wrong with you?" he demanded, "wasn't it obvious I didn't want you to do that!? I don't care if you don't speak English!"

"JoJo! Keep your voice down," Lisa Lisa whispered hoarsely.

Joseph looked back to smile apologetically at her.

"Joseph Joestar?"

His head swiveled back around. The German was watching him curiously.

"Is that your name?" he asked.

Joseph nodded slowly.

"You know me?"

"I am Lieutenant Kunz Fenchel," the officer replied, "I was under Major von Stroheim's command, before I was reassigned here. He mentioned recently that I should look out for you."

"So he set all this up, then?"

"I don't know about that, but he thought you might be able to help."

"Help with what?" Lisa Lisa asked as she stepped forward to take a position next to her son.

Kunz looked down at the hand secured to his coat collar. Joseph released him.

"This place is a laboratory run by Doctor Scheiner," the German explained, "it's been searching for a supernatural 'upper hand', as you would call it, for Germany."

"And in this case, the supernatural part is vampires, right?" Joseph assumed.

Kunz nodded.

"I'm not authorized to go past this first level, so I don't know exactly what they're doing down there, but we all know vampires should be destroyed, not experimented on."

"At the risk of harming your own country's war effort?" Lisa Lisa asked suspiciously.

Kunz raised an eyebrow at her.

"The German people don't need vampires to succeed," he replied proudly, "we have our determination, our pride, and our weapons. We—"

"Alright, alright," Joseph interrupted him, "spare us the propaganda."

"You're right," the officer agreed, "this isn't the time. The major found out about this place the day he sent his men to recover Herr Zeppeli in Switzerland."

"Caesar?"

Kunz's brow furrowed and he nodded.

"Yes, Caesar Zeppeli," he muttered before continuing, "the major's men ran into Doctor Scheiner's men in the old castle. They started shooting on sight, but one of them got away with the information."

"What happened to Caesar?" Joseph demanded.

Kunz shrugged.

"They had to leave him behind? They were being shot at."

Joseph frowned, but nodded his acknowledgment. The officer turned around to pull a file from the cabinet behind him.

"I've been trying to break the code on these files ever since I was assigned to the telegraph office, but my training never included intelligence work." He flipped it open. "But there is one person mentioned the most often, aside from the doctor himself. I don't know the name of this person, but he—or she—is always referred to as 'Kommandant'."

"Commander," Lisa Lisa added for Joseph's benefit, "perhaps Kommandant is the prototype, or the foremost test subject."

"That was my guess as well, but until one of us finds a way down there, we may never know for sure."

"You don't know the way down?" Joseph asked.

"I know where it is, but the door will not open for anyone who isn't authorized to be there," Kunz explained, "I think it might be a special key, or a password. They always clear the hallway when someone opens the door."

"If there are more sub levels beneath this one, there must be a ventilation shaft somewhere," Lisa Lisa stated.

Kunz nodded, his eyes widened in renewed hope.

"Yes!" He stepped over to the desk against the wall on the opposite side of the room. "The shaft for this level filters in here," he said, placing his finger on a paper on the desk's surface, "it's small, though. I think you would be the only one capable of slipping inside."

Joseph and Lisa Lisa looked at what he'd indicated. It was a large paper, covered in geometric lines and small labels. Joseph assumed it was a map of the top level's layout. The other levels didn't appear to be included.

"And where is the door to the sub levels?" he asked.

Kunz showed him by sliding his finger over to the end of one of the hallways. Joseph looked at his mother.

"If you can get to the other side of the door using the ventilation shaft, you might be able to open it," he suggested, "Kunz and I will be waiting there."

"Ah, Lieutenant Fenchel," Kunz corrected him.

"What are titles between newly acquainted allies?" Joseph asked, a cheeky grin on his face.

"It's worth a try," Lisa Lisa interrupted them soberly, "let's get moving before we're discovered here."

Without waiting for a response, she headed back into the office. Joseph and Kunz hurried after her and back into the empty hall. Kunz led them to the vent, where Joseph pulled the guard off to reveal the hole in the wall. The two men helped Lisa Lisa up and into the shaft, then let her proceed downward on her own by bracing herself against the shaft's walls. Kunz then turned around and gestured further down the hall.

"The door is this way," he said, "there aren't any places to hide in the hall before it, so we should keep our distance, in case someone comes up."

Joseph shrugged and followed after him.

"I can handle a scientist or two," he replied lightly, "plus, that way we can get the key."

"If it's a key," the officer corrected him, glancing back at him.

" _Alright_ ," Joseph groaned, "I get it; you're smarter than me, even though you don't know anything about your own facility."

"That was uncalled for." Kunz stopped and pointed around the corner with his thumb. "Anyway, the door is right down that way. Let's focus on it, and not on this bizarre contest you've invented."

"You started it, Kun-tsss," Joseph retorted before proceeding around the corner.

"Lieutenant Fenchel!" the German insisted, following him.

As he'd said, there was nothing to interrupt the straight hallway that led to the lower levels, but Joseph showed no sign of worry as he brazenly strode up to the locked metal door. There were no windows to let them know what might be waiting for them on the other side. Despite his confident stance, Joseph was slightly worried for the sake of his mother. He had no doubt in her abilities, but the Germans were doing something to the vampires in their lab. The uncertainty of it all bothered him, to the point where he wished he could have gone down the ventilation shaft in her stead.

Joseph and the German had been waiting only a few minutes before something within the door's thick bulk creaked. Joseph heard the bolt inside it slide out of its home in the frame and the door opened slowly. He and Kunz readied themselves, Joseph with his fists and the German with his sidearm. They both relaxed when Lisa Lisa emerged.

"Come," she said curtly before withdrawing back behind the door.

Joseph and Kunz followed her to be greeted by a downward staircase. They stopped abruptly when they noticed a uniformed guard draped, unconscious, over the stair's railing, and another guard collapsed on the steps.

"Mein Gott," Kunz whispered, "we didn't hear a sound."

"Yeah," Joseph replied haughtily, "we're that good."

"Perhaps _she_ is that good. You, I have doubts about."

Joseph showed Kunz his fist and glared at him.

"Do you need me to rattle your head a little more, Hans?" he asked.

"JoJo!" Lisa Lisa snapped.

He lowered his hand reluctantly and smiled apologetically at her. She raised an eyebrow at Kunz.

"Lieutenant, I hope you will display the discipline the German military has come to be known for, despite JoJo's lack of it."

"Yes, you're right," Kunz replied, "I apologize."

Lisa Lisa eyed her son again, then started down the stairs. The two men trailed after her in silence, Joseph fighting his urge to defend himself against her insult. He forced himself to focus on the vampires and Doctor Scheiner. They were the problem, not the arrogant German beside him. Despite his anger, he felt the beginning of a smile in the corner of his mouth. He realized he hadn't felt such anger toward an ally since he'd first met Caesar. The realization replaced his anger with the longing to see his friend again, although he knew it was impossible. It was a shame, too. He was just starting to accept it, before all this started up again.


	6. Chapter 5

At the base of the stairs was another hall, which split off in two directions, once again unguarded. Joseph still didn't like it. It was just too easy to get as far as they had. He glanced at Kunz. The German seemed to be helping them, but how much could they really trust a Nazi soldier? He could've been telling them what they wanted to hear, leading them into a trap. Surely, Lisa Lisa realized that just as much as he did. She was no fool. Nonetheless, he felt the need to bring it up, but how could they get the chance to converse privately with Kunz so close?

"We've already spent too much time here," Lisa Lisa said, turning to face them, "we'll need to split up to search the facility thoroughly. I will go left, back in the direction of the vent, and finish exploring that way. JoJo, I want you and Lieutenant Fenchel to continue straight ahead. We will meet back here. Hopefully, we'll have discovered something about the experiments being conducted at this lab by then."

"I don't need an escort," Joseph protested.

His mother folded her arms and stepped closer to him.

"I need him to go with you because you don't know a word of German," she reminded him.

"Well," he murmured, "I know the bad ones."

"Ah, wunderbar," Kunz muttered, clearly unimpressed, "shall we go?"

Joseph sighed through his nose and shrugged.

"Alright, let's get it over with."

Lisa Lisa nodded quickly and hurried off into the other hall. Joseph took the lead as he and Kunz made their way toward the first door on the right. There weren't any labels to reveal its purpose, so Joseph just put his hand on the knob and pushed the door open to pop his head inside. Two scientists in jumpsuits stood in a room with several tables and an abundance of blood-filled flasks, as well as a plethora of scientific equipment. The two looked over, their eyes widening when they realized he wasn't one of their comrades.

"Uh, Kunz?" he said, "you're on."

The German stepped past him and addressed the scientists with his gun up and ready, keeping his voice low, but firm. The scientists responded silently by raising their arms and backing away from their stations.

Joseph took the chance to look over the items on the surfaces of their tables. Aside from the things he might've expected to find in a laboratory like beakers and pipettes, he spotted what looked like several stacks of ammunition cartons, and a strange metal device connected to a cord that disappeared into a hole in the wall behind it.

"Do those look like bullets to you?" he asked.

Kunz gestured to one of the scientists with his head, then asked him a question in his native language. The scientist only stared at him, his lips firmly closed.

"As I thought, they aren't eager to betray their own secrets," the officer pointed out, "we could interrogate them, but we can't be held up here for long. Doctor Scheiner will realize there are intruders in his facility."

"They're scientists, right? They can't be that hard to break."

"The people working here are very loyal," Kunz replied, shrugging, "but perhaps you could persuade them. Were I them, however, I would fear Doctor Scheiner's vampire experiments more than some English ape."

Joseph turned his head to glare at him.

"Right, right, let's just give up now, shall we?" he asked sarcastically.

"I'm only saying we should think about it first," the soldier grumbled back, "if we cause too much noise beating these scientists up, we'll be apprehended for sure. There may be another way to get the information from them."

"I don't know a poindexter alive who isn't afraid of a fist," Joseph retorted, punching his palm as he turned to face the scientists. He grabbed one of them by the shoulder and prodded the man's cheek with his knuckles. "So?"

Kunz groaned and told the frightened scientists something in German before gesturing at Joseph and shaking his head. When the one closest to Joseph squeaked, he looked back at the officer.

"What'd you say?"

"That you are a lunatic and I can't control you."

Joseph snorted amusedly and nodded at the scientist.

"Ja, ja, he's right," he teased the man, once again threatening him with his fist, "I want to know about those bullets. They're infused with Hamon somehow, aren't they?"

"Is that even possible?" Kunz asked.

"Normally, metal can't store Hamon, just conduct it. My guess is the bullets are hollow, filled with something else."

The scientist standing beside Joseph spoke up, "if you already know, then why are you bullying us? We just make the bullets. We don't know how they actually work."

Joseph released the other and turned to face him.

"How did you figure out how to store Hamon energy?" he demanded, "even I don't know how to do that."

"Hard work and determination?" the scientist replied sarcastically, "like I said, we don't know anything beyond how to construct them. I'm sure the traitor could tell you how secretive this place is. We only know what we need to know."

Kunz's pistol clicked.

"Traitor?" the officer growled, pointing the pistol at him, "the only traitors I see here are the men helping a mad doctor expose the German people to a vampire plague. Perhaps you don't realize how dangerous they are, but ignorance is no excuse for foolishness."

"The doctor's research will protect the German people! It has been authorized by the Führer himself."

"A true servant of the Fatherland would know when it's necessary to protect its leaders from themselves," Kunz insisted.

"Alright, alright, alright," Joseph interrupted them, "you two could argue about this all day."

"You're right," Kunz admitted, holstering his gun, "we should subdue them. It's clear we'll get no more information from them."

Joseph raised his arm, his hand balled into a fist, and knocked the closest of the scientists hard in the temple. The man crumpled to the ground and he turned to do the same to second. Once they were both out cold, Kunz yanked a cord from the wall and used it to tie the two men together.

Meanwhile, Joseph looked around the room with his arms folded, a frustrated pout on his face. Finally, his eyes settled on the strange machine he'd only glanced over before. Of all the objects in the room, it was the only one he hadn't seen at least once in his life. He proceeded to the counter it sat upon and looked it over closely before taking the risk of giving it a quick poke.

Joseph yelped and recoiled when a spark leapt from the surface of the machine and into his undefended finger.

"What?" Kunz exclaimed in a whisper, "what is it?"

Despite his initial shock, Joseph realized he knew what'd hit him. It was the familiar energy of Hamon, somehow hidden from his senses beneath the outer shell of the machine.

"They must be harvesting it somehow," Joseph muttered to himself, intrigued despite how embarrassing that moment had been, "but they could only do that if they had someone to generate it for them. Maybe they captured a Hamon user mom and I didn't know about."

"Let's see if we can trace that cord its plugged to," Kunz suggested, "it looks like it goes into the next room through that hole in the wall."

Joseph nodded and rushed out of the room, back into the hall. He could hear Kunz scrambling to keep up with him as he whipped around to search for the next door. His heart leapt in his chest when he spotted the door, quite a ways down the hall. He almost couldn't contain his excitement. It was about time they had some direction. As soon as they solved the mystery of how the Germans got their hands on Hamon, he knew the others would be quick to follow.

Kunz ran after him, then stopped beside him in front of the door.

"Finally," Joseph whispered, "it's about time we got some answers."

Kunz nodded and put his hand on the handle of his pistol, but didn't pull it out of its holster. Joseph reached out to turn the door's knob, then pushed it open.


	7. Chapter 6

Joseph stopped in his tracks when he saw what awaited them in the room. It was large, but bare and lit by two small bulbs. There didn't even appear to be an opening in the wall to accommodate the cord. Perhaps they'd missed something? Their answers should've been there!

"Is this some big joke?" he demanded, "where does that cord lead? What is this room doing here? Does it have no purpose!?"

"Calm down," Kunz suggested from behind him.

He came up beside him, then put his hand on his shoulder and pointed upward. Joseph looked and saw a pane of glass near the top of the wall, well above head-height. Beyond it was another room, where a long counter had been put up against the glass pane. Behind the counter stood an older-looking man, with his hands behind his back and a studious expression on his face.

"Doctor Scheiner," Kunz stated for Joseph's benefit.

"Lieutenant Fenchel," the doctor greeted the officer, his voice echoing throughout the room from its source: a speaker installed in one of the corners near the ceiling. "I had my suspicions about you, but I didn't think you a traitor," he continued. He paused to shrug, then added, "at least you had the decency to bring such a useful subject with you."

"Believe me, Doctor," Kunz replied, "it gives me no pleasure to side with an Englishman, but you've given me no choice. I can't let you release monsters upon the world."

"Enough of your posturing," Scheiner grumbled, "you waste my time." He looked away from Kunz dismissively and settled his gaze on Joseph. "You are Joestar, correct?" he asked, sounding intrigued.

"That's right," Joseph answered, "and you're the idiot playing with things you don't understand. If you had any idea how dangerous vampires really are, you wouldn't have carted them around in insecure wooden boxes." He paused to point accusingly at him. "Really," he began again, "if you knew a thing about them, you would've destroyed whatever you pulled from that castle a long time ago."

"Really?" the doctor asked amusedly, "you want me to destroy something before you even know what it is? You should keep that foolishness in check."

Scheiner smiled, most pleased with himself, and pointed toward the room's left wall. Joseph looked to see the wall he'd thought was concrete start to pull away from its corner, revealing another pane of glass. Beyond it was another room at the same height as the one he and Kunz stood in, with a hole in the wall where the cord from the laboratory machine entered it.

In the center of the other room was an uncomfortable-looking metal chair with its back slightly reclined to accommodate the unconscious young man sitting in it. His appearance was shocking, with a left arm composed entirely of metal plates, cords, and joints, and the Nazi swastika painted on the shoulder. Similarly, the upper part of his chest had been replaced with cybernetics and a series of connected plates that moved apart and together with each of the man's breaths. Although his lower body was covered by gray fatigues, Joseph could see the top of another piece of metal beneath the waistband.

Like the only other Nazi cyborg Joseph had ever seen, this one also had a robotic eye, set in a plate over the right side of his face. Unlike Stroheim, however, he also had a metal band around the circumference of his head that, judging by the scars just beneath his hairline, seemed to be holding his skull in one piece.

Although many alterations had been made and he had a thoroughly unfamiliar appearance, Joseph recognized the young man's face immediately.

"Caesar!" he shrieked, sprinting to the wall. He slammed a fist into the glass pane, his lips pulled back in a snarl. He looked back up at the doctor and cried, "what did you do to him!?"

"I saved his life," Scheiner replied simply.

Joseph spun around to shoot Kunz a pleading gaze. The German nodded and whipped his pistol from its holster to shoot the glass. When Joseph didn't hear it shatter, he turned around again to see the bullet had only made a small mark.

"Bulletproof," Kunz muttered disappointedly.

Joseph turned again to glare up at Scheiner.

"Herr Zeppeli is one of a few useful artifacts I recovered from the Swiss castle," the doctor explained, "shall I follow your advice and destroy him? I can incinerate him with the press of a button."

"No!" Joseph yelped. He glanced at Caesar again, his heart quickly filling with pain at the sight of his friend turned into a machine, hooked up to other machines to serve as a Hamon generator.

"He is not my prisoner, Joestar," Scheiner assured him, "he has been a vital tool in my Hamon research, even before you met him in Rome. I've been researching Hamon energy for twenty years, but without alive Hamon user to contribute, my results were few and far between. With Herr Zeppeli's help I've advanced my research beyond my initial goals."

"You bastard," Joseph hissed at him, "you make it sound like this was his choice, but anyone who saw this would know you left him with no other option! Anyone who knows him would tell you he can be an asshole, but he would never willingly help you if he knew you were trying to weaponize vampires."

"Well, well," Scheiner cooed, "I left you with very few clues, yet you still managed to figure out what I'm doing here. I was under the impression you were just a big, foolish oaf. My apologies."

"I don't want your apologies, I want you to hand Caesar over."

"Did you think it was cheap, bringing him back from the brink of death? Assisting me is the least he can do to repay my generosity."

"Let him go, Doctor," Kunz growled, "he deserves more than this."

"I would gain nothing from that," Scheiner replied calmly, "this is a place of science and your English friend is here to help me. Herr Zeppeli will serve as the perfect motivation. Now, I have little time, all of which belongs to the Führer himself. I must not delay his test results."

Joseph glanced at Caesar, then back at Scheiner.

"Test results?"

"Yes. Any prototype being presented to the Party leadership must be thoroughly tested and proven deserving of their time."

The doctor leaned over the counter in front of him and pressed something on its surface. The wall on the far side of the room from where Caesar was began to open as well. Beyond it was a tall, blond woman with a strong German jaw and fierce red eyes. Her arms were left bare by the tank top she wore and were visibly toned, with firm shoulders and biceps. Unlike the vampires the Joestars had encountered shortly before, her face was smooth and young, which meant she was kept well-fed.

"You'll find my Nena is nothing like the desiccated, weak-blooded whelps you destroyed on your way here," Scheiner explained, "my soldiers are of the finest German stock, though they are taken at older ages than our specialist troops. After they're given the blood of the plentiful weaker races their strength has peaked. However, I won't tell you just yet what makes them truly special."

"Trust me, Doctor, no vampire is a challenge after having to fight the guy who created the stone masks," Joseph replied confidently, with a dismissive hand wave.

"Careful, Herr Joestar," Kunz warned him, "Doctor Scheiner isn't an idiot."

"Neither am I," Joseph insisted. He looked up at the doctor and winked. "By the way, after I'm done with your 'prototype', I'm coming after you."

"I look forward to it," Scheiner replied disinterestedly, revealing his words to be less than truthful, "but don't be needlessly cocky. I need you to stay alive long enough to provide me with something interesting to report." He raised an eyebrow at Kunz. "It's too bad the factors in this experiment aren't entirely controlled. Ideally, you would be alone. Try not to let the lieutenant's presence be too much of a distraction, Joestar."

Joseph glanced back at the officer, who cocked his gun and shook his head. He wished he knew what Kunz meant by that, but they didn't have time to discuss it before the pane of bulletproof glass separating them from Nena began to rise.

The vampire sprang into action immediately, dashing toward Joseph at a blinding speed. Although it'd been a while since his last true challenge, the Englishman managed to step aside before Nena's claws could tear his throat out. Joseph pivoted and swung his elbow upward to strike the vampire's jaw hard. To his surprise, the Hamon he'd charged into it fizzled out in a few sad, puttering sparks against Nena's skin, failing to do any damage at all.

"What?" he breathed.

The vampire responded to his stunned hesitation by grabbing his face and effortlessly tossing him across the room. Joseph hurtled backward through the air until striking the glass behind him, causing a crack to appear as a result of the sheer force of the impact. Joseph groaned weakly after landing face-first on the concrete floor. He was able to move, which meant she hadn't broken his back, but the pain he was in could've fooled him into thinking otherwise.

Joseph pushed himself off the floor and massaged his sore jaw where she'd gripped him, peering at her through one open eye. Nena seemed pleased with herself, to his consternation.

"Cute trick," he grumbled through clenched teeth as he readied himself for the next attack.

Nena grinned and instead set her sights on Kunz, who fired at her as soon as she'd turned her head to look at him. The vampire turned about and started toward him slowly, unfazed by the bullet hole in her chest.

"Get out of the way, Kunz!" Joseph shouted at him.

The German grimaced at him, then rushed to the door they'd entered from, only to find it was locked. He cursed to himself and looked back at the woman to fire again.

"How?" he exclaimed.

Joseph groaned and ran up behind the vampire to leap on her back. Surprised, Nena shrieked angrily and tried to shake him off. Joseph secured his arm around her neck to prevent her from tossing him aside again. He quickly charged the tip of his pinky finger with energy, then jabbed it into Nena's ear.

"What're you doing!?" Kunz cried, "how is that supposed to help?"

The vampire grabbed his arm and leapt into the air, then fell back down again, landing hard on Joseph's already bruised back. He grunted painfully, but kept his grip as she rolled over to right herself. It was apparent by then that his little prod hadn't worked. Somehow, the doctor had eliminated the vampire's weakness to Hamon. In the absence of sunlight, far below the surface, Joseph didn't know how he was supposed to counter it. At least, not without knowing how Scheiner did it.

When Nena swiped at him, cutting his cheek, Joseph realized he needed to back off. He let go of her and hopped backward to put some space between them. Now, he stood between Kunz and the vampire. Scheiner had been right about his presence being a distraction. Although he had no love for the officer, he'd been useful. That, and he stood up for Caesar. He couldn't just ignore that. No, he had to keep Nena away from Kunz. Although his Hamon was so far useless, he was better equipped to defend himself against such a monster than the average man.

Nena advanced again and Joseph dodged, then poked his Hamon-charged pinky into her eye. She jumped back immediately, holding her eye. When she moved her hand, Joseph could see some of his energy had finally made it through whatever defenses her skin had.

"Ah," he breathed interestedly, "your immunity is only skin deep, hm?" He glanced back at Kunz. "Tell me you stole some of the bullets from the lab."

Kunz shook his head.

"Right," Joseph chirped, "then we'll improvise."

"I haven't allowed you any tool capable of penetrating my monster's defenses," Doctor Scheiner interrupted, "you can't kill my Nena."

Joseph looked up, a cocky smirk on his face. The doctor seemed perturbed by the wounded eye "his monster" now had. Joseph had also wounded his pride, and that meant his guise was dropping. He wasn't the purely scientific mind he wanted to be.

"Yet I know exactly what to do," Joseph said proudly, bringing his hand up to his face.

"That's impossible," the doctor growled.

"In a few minutes, your Nena will be a pile of rotting flesh and it will be your turn to face my fists. Are you prepared?"

"Shut up."

"But don't you want to know how I'll do it?" Joseph persisted. He grinned again and drew his hand closer to his lips. "And now you'll say 'I already told you it's impossible, you stupid boy'!"

"I already told you it's impossible, you stupid boy!" Scheiner hissed. Then, he paused, his eyes widened, and leaned over the counter to glare down at him. "How did you do that!?"

"You'll see," Joseph promised before biting the side of his finger, drawing blood.

"Are you hoping to distract her?" Scheiner asked incredulously, "did you think I wouldn't train my soldiers to resist the attraction of blood?"

"Do you like baseball?" Joseph asked. He drew his bleeding hand back, as well as his leg in a stylish pitcher's pose. "No? I call this one Hi Bell Blood Pitch!"

As Joseph released the wind up, he hardened a large drop of his own blood with Hamon and tossed it in place of a ball, its speed boosted by the energy infused in it. The drop sliced through the air, elongated into a sharp needle as it did. After closing the distance between Joseph and Nena at the speed of a bullet, the blood needle penetrated the vampire's left knee easily, causing the skin around the wound to melt. Nena grimaced as she wobbled on her wounded knee, before it gave way and she fell to the floor.

"Ha!" Joseph declared triumphantly, "strike one!"

"Is this a joke to you!?" Scheiner exclaimed from his observation area.

Joseph wound up again and tossed another blood drop, this time striking her in the right shoulder. Her arm slipped from its liquidated socket and fell to the floor beside her.

"Strike two!"

"Stop this, right now!"

Joseph winked at Nena, then tossed his third pitch, nailing her between the eyes. At last, the vampire fell to the floor, more dead than she'd been before.

"Steeeerike three! You're out!" Joseph yelled in his best MLB umpire voice.

"What!?" the doctor shrieked.

"A victory," Joseph declared, pointing triumphantly in Scheiner's direction, "in true American fashion."

"You're English," Kunz muttered, apparently confused by the scene he'd just witnessed.

"You think you're an expert on Hamon, Doctor?" Joseph asked mockingly, "well, there's only so much you can learn from someone strapped to a chair."

Joseph leapt to the remaining glass wall and punched it hard, right where the crack was, sending more cracks out in all directions across its surface. Finally, he gave it a definitive kick and shards of heavy glass fell, creating a hole large enough to enter. When Joseph looked up to see what Scheiner thought of that, the doctor was already gone.

"Damnit," he grumbled, "I'll get you, bastard."


	8. Chapter 7

Sending Scheiner to the back of his mind for the time being, Joseph stepped through the hole he'd created in the glass to enter the room where Caesar lie unconscious. Kunz was quick to follow him, then made his way over to the console that seemed to be monitoring the mess of machines that kept the Italian alive, while sapping his Hamon energy. Joseph went straight to his friend's side to give him a quick look over.

Although it was clear by the scars all over his body that he'd nearly been as dead as Joseph had initially thought him to be, Caesar was breathing softly, as if asleep. There was a thick wire protruding from the metal band around his cranium that seemed to go past it and into his skull. Joseph paused for less than a second to snarl at the absence of Doctor Scheiner, then grabbed the wire.

"Wait!" Kunz exclaimed.

Joseph kept his hand on it, but didn't pull. He looked toward the German.

"We need to get him out of here," he insisted.

"I agree," Kunz replied, "but it might be connected to his brain. I don't know much about Hamon, but I know you can't do it in your sleep. Perhaps this is how they're getting his energy while keeping him sedated this way."

"How does that make sense?"

He shook his head.

"If it's in his brain, you could kill him by yanking it out without first knowing what it's doing to him."

Reluctantly, Joseph admitted to himself that the officer was right and let go of the cord. He took a step back to survey the rest of the machinery. It was no use. He was no scientist or engineer, but he couldn't bear to leave Caesar on that chair any longer. Even if separating him from the monstrous machines would kill him, it'd be a mercy. Joseph clenched his teeth and drew his leg up, aiming for one of the cords that stretched between the chair and the console.

"No!" Kunz cried, but not in time to stop him.

The cord snapped out of its socket, causing the hum of machinery to putter out into silence. Caesar didn't move. Joseph bent over him to put his ear against his chest. What he heard was no heart, but it was still functioning and that, at least, was something. He waited, listening to the steady sound of Caesar's breathing. The pace hadn't changed. He seemed completely unaffected by the loss of the machines.

"Caesar?" he whispered.

No response. Joseph straightened and put both hands on the Italian's shoulders to shake him.

"Wake up!" he called.

"We don't have time for this," Kunz reminded him hoarsely.

Joseph nodded and reached down to yank the straps that secured Caesar to his seat free from their buckles and separated him from the cord in his head. Satisfied, he scooped his arm under the Italian's back and slung him up, over his shoulder. He grimaced at how unexpectedly heavy his friend had been made.

"Alright, let's go," he grunted.

Kunz nodded his agreement emphatically and led the way out of the room. Joseph hurried after him, powering through the obstacle of extra weight on his back. They whipped around the corner, back in the direction of the stairs, but stopped when a shot rang out. The ping of metal ricocheting off metal followed, and a thump on Joseph's back, right about where Caesar's head was.

The Englishman ducked desperately, trying not to think about the possibility that his friend had been shot so soon after they'd rescued him. He kept running, his head low, and slid around the next bend to put Caesar down. Kunz rushed after him, nearly running right into the wall, and whipped back around, his pistol drawn. As the German provided covering fire, Joseph peered around the corner at the armed Nazis carefully advancing on their position, despite the bullets shooting their way.

The Nazis returned fire, forcing Kunz to withdraw behind the wall. The ringing of an alarm echoed around them from every hall within earshot. Joseph grimaced and looked back into the hall behind them. The door to the stairway was right there, already open, but well within the Nazis' line of sight. Had he been paying more attention, he would've noticed it _before_ trapping himself. He looked up to see Kunz was probably thinking the same thing, judging by the look of stressful longing on his face as he eyed their exit.

"Think there'd be another way out of here?" he asked.

"I've never been down here before," the German growled. He paused to shoot at their pursuers, then looked back again. "I can only think of the ventilation system," he added, "but without someone small and strong enough to crawl back up, it's useless to us."

"Shit!" Joseph cried, slapping his palm to his forehead, "my mother is still out there!"

" _We_ are still out here," Kunz growled, checking his pockets for more bullets.

Joseph grunted as he hoisted Caesar back onto his shoulder.

"Wait, wait, we need a plan."

Joseph shrugged, despite the Italian on his back.

"I'm going to find her," he replied, "isn't that a plan?"

Joseph spun about and hurried down the hall, in the opposite direction of the exit. He heard Kunz begin to follow, after a moment of hesitation. Soon, the Nazi guards figured out they weren't lingering by the corner anymore and began to chase them. Radio static cracked out of a speaker near the end of the hall where it'd been bolted to the corner near the ceiling.

"Herr Joestar," Doctor Scheiner's voice sounded, "you and the lieutenant have no chance of escaping this facility alive."

"Ha!" Joseph huffed to himself.

"Surrender now," the doctor continued, "you will not be killed if you obey my directions. I would benefit greatly from having another Hamon user at my disposal. Stop running, release Herr Zeppeli, and await my guards with your arms raised above your heads."

Joseph slipped around the corner at the hall's head. The vent his mother had used to descend to the sublevel was visible, then, but she didn't appear to be nearby. It worried him. If she wasn't headed toward the stairs, she must've been made incapable of doing so.

"Where are you?" he grumbled under his breath.

His eyes caught the glint of a metal sign beside a door he'd just passed. Out of curiosity, Joseph slowed to look back at it. "Scheiner" was the only word he needed to see.

"Aha!"

"What?" Kunz demanded, "we need to go."

Joseph pointed at the sign.

"This. What's it say?"

"Office of the director. Doctor Helmut Scheiner."

"Perfect!"

The German narrowed his eyes at him.

"No, really," Joseph insisted, "this doctor's supposed to be smart, isn't he?"

Kunz's teeth clenched as he looked back in the direction they'd come. There were already footsteps sounding from the next hall.

"Yes, yes, what about it?"

"Then he wouldn't be stupid enough to lock himself underground with a bunch of specially engineered vampires and only one exit," the Englishman explained quickly, "if I were him, I'd have my own exit. Perhaps in my office?"

"Whatever it is you're going to do, do it," Kunz replied brusquely.

Joseph pulled his knee up to bust the door inward with a mighty kick. He slipped inside, followed closely by Kunz, and shoved the door closed again. He slid himself up against the door while gently setting Caesar down on the floor. He put a finger to his lips, glancing briefly at Kunz, and pressed his ear to the door. He waited as the footsteps drew nearer.

The guards slowed, clearly concerned that they hadn't spotted their quarry yet. They conversed quietly with each other while slowly proceeding past the door. Joseph clamped his lips together tightly as if it was the only thing that would stop him from saying something to attract their attention. Once they'd passed, he allowed himself to breathe.

"Damn," he whispered.

Kunz took a quick look around the office to make sure they were alone. There was a desk toward the center back section of the room with a simple, cushioned wooden chair. A bookcase full of tomes with German titles sat against the wall in the corner beside the door. Aside from a few framed accolades, the walls were bare. The friendliest-looking part of the room was the red, yellow-lined rug under the chair.

"Perhaps she was captured," Kunz wondered aloud, still catching his breath.

Joseph shook his head.

"Not with that alarm blaring," he assured him. He turned to put his back to the door and sighed heavily. "But she could be trapped like us. I mean, if there's no exit in here."

"We'd better start looking."

Joseph nodded, but only watched the other man start to search the desk. Instead, he leaned over Caesar to gently feel around his head for bullet wounds. He gasped when he felt moisture and turned his head around to check for blood. There was a small cut on his ear, accompanied by a dent in the metal band that encircled his cranium. Joseph let himself breathe a sigh of relief and stood up. He bent over to grab Caesar's bicep and drag him away from the door before turning to the bookcase. He felt along the spines of the books for irregularities.

"I'm going to flip his desk over if this bookcase is the secret exit," Joseph grumbled, "but what do you think? A mad scientist interested in vampires pulling a good 'ole Dracula's castle trick?"

"Too bizarre," Kunz replied disinterestedly as he searched underneath the desk.

Joseph pursed his lips and flicked the spine of the book under his finger. Of all the books on the shelf, it seemed the most cheaply made. While the others had supple leather bindings and gold or black etching, the book he'd flicked seemed to be painted, rather than carefully crafted. He shrugged, then pulled the book from the case.

He glared at the bookcase when something behind it clicked.

"Not possible," Kunz groaned.

"I guess nothing is too bizarre for this guy," Joseph replied, tossing the book aside.

Kunz moved to the bookcase to push it open on its hinges. Joseph sighed and turned around. He planted his foot on the desk's edge and shoved, sending everything on its surface crashing to the floor. Kunz cocked an eyebrow at him.

"What, did you expect me to lie?" he asked. He knelt down beside Caesar. "We'll get him out of here, then come back for my mother." He paused to give the Italian another shake. "Come on, help me out here," he grumbled.

Caesar groaned. Joseph beamed.

"Caesar!" he called excitedly, shaking him again, "Caesar!"

Caesar's fist flew upward to nail him in the jaw, knocking him back on his ass. Joseph put a hand on the spot he knew would soon be a bruise and hissed. At least, he thought, it wasn't the metal fist that hit him.

"Asshole," he growled, restraining the urge to hit him back.

He peered down at him through a half-closed eye. Caesar shifted, but didn't open his eyes or attempt to get up. Movement was a good sign, but he'd thought they were past the kicking and punching part of their relationship. Nonetheless, he dragged him up to the bookcase, where a tunnel awaited them. Kunz reached down to grab one of his arms, allowing Joseph to take the other. Together, they shuffled him down the short corridor that led them to a hidden stairway. They looked at each other, then readied themselves for the long climb to the surface.

After making it up three stretches of stairs, Joseph heard a gun being cocked above him. They stopped to look up. Scheiner stood on the landing at the head of the flight they were climbing, a gun in his hand.

"Clever," the doctor said interestedly, "very clever of you to find this place."

"Don't sound so surprised," Joseph muttered at him, "you're the one who put it in such an obvious place."

"Yes, perhaps I haven't given you enough credit." Scheiner's posture straightened. "While this has been an exciting adventure for all of us, I must end it here. Put him down. You can decide how you want this to end once I know you won't damage him."

Joseph exhaled slowly and looked over at Kunz to gesture at Caesar with his head.

" _Halt_!" Scheiner declared, shifting the gun's point over in Joseph's direction.

"You want us to put him down or not?" the Englishman asked indignantly, "lower the gun, idiot!"

"Don't try anything with your Hamon," the doctor continued, "I saw you slow your breathing."

"Hey, hey," Joseph argued back, "it was only a sigh! What could I possibly do with a gun pointed at me?"

"I'm not going to underestimate you like that again. It's clear to me now you can turn anything into a weapon!"

Joseph groaned.

"Fine, then I'll just set him down!"

"Slowly."

" _Sloooowly_."

Joseph looked over at Kunz again, gestured at Caesar with his head as he'd done before, then raised one eyebrow, the one farthest from the doctor. Luckily, Kunz seemed to understand. He took all of Caesar's weight on himself while Joseph very slowly slid himself out from under the Italian's arm. As he'd suspected, Scheiner's attention stayed locked on him. As he moved, the gun followed him.

"There," he said, raising his arms into the air, "let's all just simmer down a little, eh? No one wants to get shot."

As if on cue, a shot sounded and a bullet smacked itself into Scheiner's gun hand. He dropped his pistol and shot his gaze over to Kunz, who had the barrel of his own pistol pointed at him from underneath Caesar's arm, where the doctor had failed to notice it.

Joseph grinned triumphantly and practically flew up the steps to meet Scheiner. He kicked the gun away, then tripped the older man with a second kick behind the calves that swept his legs out from under him. Scheiner fell on his back against the wall, allowing Joseph to rush down at him and punch him right in the eye.

"Told you I'd come for you, bastard," he growled.

"Jojo!"

Joseph looked back to see Kunz coming up the stairs, slowly. The German gestured downward with his head.

"They're coming this way!"

"Damnit," Joseph cursed. He glared at Scheiner. "I'll be back," he promised.

Reluctantly, he left him where he sat to help Kunz carry Caesar the rest of the way up. The pair hurried upward as fast as they could with the unconscious Caesar between them. There were only two flights of stairs left when Joseph spotted the first of their armed pursuers on the landing beneath them.

" _Nicht schieβen_!" he heard Scheiner order, followed by some other words he didn't understand. One he did catch, however, was "Kommandant", that codename mentioned in the files Kunz told them about earlier. Did he mean Caesar?

At last, they arrived at a door framed by the promise of balmy sunlight just on the other side. Joseph picked his leg off the steps, balancing carefully with Caesar on his shoulder, and kicked the door outward.


	9. Chapter 8

Joseph pushed Kunz outside with Caesar, then spun around to slam the door shut behind them. He looked around for something to barricade it. Aside from the dirt and grass that surrounded them, there was only one large barrel just beside the closed door marked " _Bier_ " with a nondescript white-background, black-font tag. Joseph pressed his shoulder against it, careful not to knock it over, and slid it in front of the door. Satisfied, he stepped back to take a look around.

The truck they'd arrived on was still in place, with the sun beaming over the tops of the German forest outside the perimeter. The facility's main entrance appeared to remain sealed, though he knew the guards would join them soon.

"Where are the men who drove that truck?" Kunz asked.

Joseph gestured toward it with his head. "In the back, if they're still unconscious."

"Let us hope so; they'd be the ones holding the keys."

Joseph rolled his eyes at him. "Keys," he muttered, "you don't have any imagination."

Without replying, Kunz started shuffling toward the truck under Caesar's weight. Joseph watched him struggle for just a short, amusing while before going to help him. As much as he wanted the German taken down a peg, he wasn't about to risk all their lives for the satisfaction. They made quick work of the short trek to the facility's driveway. To his surprise, Joseph could hear the truck's motor was already running. Had they left it that way? He realized he couldn't remember with the excitement from before…what a waste of gas! The two began to carry Caesar toward the back, but stopped when they heard dirt being disturbed ahead of them. To Joseph's dismay, three armed Nazi guards emerged from their hiding places behind the truck.

"How many of you do I have to pummel before you people back off?" Joseph grumbled.

"This game is over," the foremost of the soldiers said, in a thick German accent. He glanced at the other two individually. " _Feuer frei_."

"You can't!" Kunz interjected quickly, "we still have your Kommandant!"

"We are meant to stop you," the soldier replied with a nonchalant shrug, "what do I care about the doctor's pet project?"

"Keep 'em talking," Joseph grumbled under his breath.

" _How_?" Kunz growled back.

Joseph pressed his lips together and glared at him urgently.

"The doctor cares, so you should care!" Kunz blurted clumsily, "he, uh…well, he'd kill you, surely."

"The Italian is just a—"

" _Gefreiter_ ," one of the other two interrupted.

The first shrugged. "Right. You're stalling. Kill them."

Joseph thrust his fist out in front him, his arm fully extended. "Stop right there!" he declared. The soldiers did stop, to look curiously at his closed fist. "Yes, that's right," Joseph continued, "I have in my hand a dangerous weapon."

"What?" Kunz whispered.

"Stalling," the soldier repeated, pointing his pistol at Joseph's head.

"You're taking a chance, Mister Guh-fry-ta," Joseph warned him.

Kunz slapped his own forehead as he released an exasperated sigh. "It's a military rank, Jojo," he mumbled.

"Oh, good," Joseph replied, "it would've been a stupid name."

"Get to the point, Joestar," the 'Gefreiter' grumbled impatiently, "if you have another card to play, then play it!"

Joseph opened his hand to reveal several long, wavy blond hairs he'd pulled from Caesar's head only seconds before. The three soldiers squinted in unison, attempting to discern whatever it was Joseph had promised them was a dangerous weapon. When they realized there was nothing else to see, one of them laughed. The other two just smiled haughtily.

"Right," the leader spat, " _now_ you can kill them."

Joseph filled the hairs with his carefully-gathered Hamon, straightening them into deadly little needles. It was a trick he'd used before, but he didn't have the time to be picky. He launched them at the soldiers with a flick of his wrist, nailing two of them in their throats. The third, their leader, managed to duck just in time. The "weapon" he'd meant for him stuck itself into the concrete wall behind him, then went limp as its Hamon dissipated.

The officer didn't stand up again before firing his pistol at Kunz. Both he and Caesar collapsed on the ground as Joseph's heart leapt anxiously. His lips formed a snarl and he leapt closer to the last of their enemies to kick him back against the wall. When his body went limp, Joseph spun about to return to his fallen friends. He knelt beside Kunz to check his wound. He found the hole in Kunz's shoulder. Not fatal, then.

Kunz grumbled as he craned his neck to get a look at the bleeding wound.

" _Scheiβe_ ," he cursed, "I'm sorry JoJo; I should have been more careful. I thought, surely, he would've fallen too."

"Mm-hm," Joseph grunted back, pressing on the bullet hole. Kunz groaned painfully. "At least you're not dead. I need someone to help me with Caesar."

"Where do you plan to take him?" Kunz replied, ignoring Joseph's thin attempt to veil his concern for his safety, "you're in our country now. Do you even know where?"

"Well, there's a forest," Joseph offered, still trying to keep the pressure on his wound, "forests are good places to get lost, aren't they?"

"Lost and dead, yes. You know, some say there are spirits in the forest. Sorcerers and werewolves, too. It may seem fanciful, but I've started to think otherwise once I realized vampires were real."

Joseph scoffed.

"I fight them; how much harder can ghosts be?"

Kunz sighed and propped himself up on his elbows.

"I don't know how set on that plan you may be," he began again, "but may I offer an alternative?"

Joseph shrugged.

"Right," Kunz proceeded, taking it as a 'yes', "there is a village not far from here called Schiltach. We've been keeping it under observation for harboring suspected traitors. People who are not so fond of the Party. If we were right, they may be willing to shelter you and your friend."

"I still need to go back for my mother," Joseph pointed out, "maybe you can take him there yourself."

Kunz smirked.

"You would trust me to do this alone?"

"I think if you were going to turn on us you would've done it by now."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence, but I—" Joseph raised an eyebrow at the officer, whose eyes had gone wide. He turned his heel away and was about to look when the German continued: "Jo—!"

The Englishman gasped, shocked when Kunz's eye exploded, destroyed by the bullet resulting from the shot he heard. Blood struck him on the cheek, causing him to wince just before he threw himself to the ground and whipped his hands up to cover his head.

"Shit!" he gasped, peeking out from under his arm at the advancing soldier. Where had he come from!? He looked to see Kunz's pistol was still in the dead officer's holster, underneath the hand that had tried to grab it before his life had ended. _Poor bastard_ …

"Hmph," he heard the newcomer huff, looking over his dead and unconscious coworkers with a critical eye, "he should have known better…but the doctor will deal with him." He looked back at Joseph, the gun still pointed at him. "I'll get a promotion for recovering both of you and dealing with the traitor all on my own, so don't ruin it by making me shoot you now."

"Why do you all think I would rather be captured than shot?" Joseph growled incredulously, "you give me no credit!"

The soldier shrugged, sighing as he reoriented his aim.

"Just one in the leg, then."

Joseph heard a clean click, a gear shifting, from the truck's direction just before it lurched forward and rammed into the surprised soldier, mowing him down beneath its heavy wheels before he could get a shot off. Joseph pulled his hands off his head, both eyes round as plates, while he tried to figure out what'd just happened. He grinned when a head of long, brown hair emerged from the driver's side window.

"Get in," Lisa Lisa told him smoothly, a cigarette between her lips as she regarded him through her sunglasses with a feigned air of disinterest. Joseph's grin stretched from ear to ear as he scrambled back to his feet, giving her a grateful thumbs up before he hoisted Caesar over his shoulder and brought him to the back. After shoving the two men they'd hidden inside it out onto the dirt road behind them, he knocked twice on the back of the cab to tell his mother they were ready to go.

Joseph watched the scenery behind the truck shift as the Hamon master directed it away from the only gate in the barbed fence. The vehicle accelerated suddenly, speeding straight toward the back end of the installation's clearing. Joseph saw some more soldiers emerging from the bunker, but they were quickly left behind. With a confident laugh, he stuck his tongue out at them only to yelp when the truck jolted violently, ramming through the fence at full speed. He braced himself with a hand on the tailgate while it continued to power through the wood beyond, plowing through bushes and saplings as a result of Lisa Lisa's plan to escape the watchtowers.

After what felt like forever, but couldn't have been more than a minute or two, Joseph felt as if the ground beneath them had fallen out, his own boots slipping from under him with the sudden change in force. Half a second later the truck landed with a screech and several loud metallic creaks in the road beneath the berm they'd launched off of. Joseph grumbled, holding his jaw with a grimace after having smacked it on the truck bed. He glanced back to see the road behind them was empty, to his relief.

Sighing, he plopped himself down with his back to the tailgate. He jumped up immediately when he saw Caesar crumpled in a corner, tossed into it by the action. He crawled across the truck bed until he was beside him and propped him up against the wall, checking his pulse with his brow furrowed in worry. Caesar was still alive, or as alive as he'd been before. At least he knew he was conscious enough to punch him, though he didn't fancy taking another good shot from him just to prove he was alright.

"Caesar?" he asked gently, keeping his face a reasonable distance from either of the Italian's hands. He didn't have his hopes up…but when he heard a quiet groan over the sound of the speeding truck's engine, he leaned forward eagerly, grabbing his friend's shoulder to shake him. "Caesar! Can you hear me?" This time, he got a mumble in response. Although he couldn't understand the words, his heart was doing cartwheels in excitement. "Yes! It's m—"

Joseph wound up with his face planted firmly against the truck bed, Caesar's metal arm holding him there with unwavering strength, his eyes just cracking open for the first time. " _Idiota_ ," Caesar hissed, the word slurred just a little as if he'd woken groggily from a drunken haze, "what took you so long?"

Joseph tried to push himself off the floor with both his arms and his legs straining against it, but the machine that'd replaced Caesar's arm proved much stronger. He groaned into the metal floor, smacking it with one fist. "Caesar, I swear to God if you break my skull after all the shit I went through trying to find you, I'll—"

Caesar's eyes opened fully, at last, and his brow wrinkled in obvious confusion before he released the Englishman's head and brought the prosthetic hand up to look at it in horror. "Is this my…?" he whispered, terrified, "what is this? What happened!?"

Joseph let out a sigh and sat down with his legs splayed out in front of him while he scratched the back of his head, wondering where to start. "Before or after I thought you were dead?" he quipped. Caesar's expression told him he was far from amused. "How much do you know? What do you remember?"

Caesar waved the metal hand in front of his face, disgust dripping from his features. "I remember my lungs filling with my own blood after broken ribs had punctured them and knowing I was going to die," he growled impatiently, "now tell me _what this is_!"

Joseph tried to keep any anxiety from showing on his face while he found himself staring at the rest of the many prosthetics the doctor had provided him with to save his life. If a metal hand was all it took to shake him up, he would need to keep him away from any mirrors. He took a deep breath and released it before reaching out to push the hand out of his face.

"It's better than having no hand, that's what it is," he replied defiantly, the joints of his own prosthetic creaking as he clenched and unclenched it at his side in annoyance, "trust me." The energy seeming to have drained from him in that brief moment of outrage, Caesar let his back fall against the wall while looking around slowly. Joseph could see him trying to put the pieces together without having to ask for an explanation to their surroundings.

Deciding he shouldn't have to ask, he spoke up again to rip off the Band-Aid, "your battle with Wamuu happened months ago…we thought you were killed instantly, and we couldn't stick around to find out if it was true. I found you being held by Germans, plugged into some kind of Hamon generator, and now we're escaping."

Caesar closed his eyes, sighing as he shook his head. "That sounds more like a cheap novel you read recently," he murmured, shrugging, "the Germans and I have an understanding, but it would never go so far as a 'Hamon generator', and all the wine in the world wouldn't be enough to make me forget a month."

Joseph crossed his legs to lean forward, folding his arms. "You wouldn't need to forget if you weren't awake to see any of it," he pointed out, "denying it isn't going to change what happened, either. You could ask Doctor Scheiner himself, if he wouldn't just knock you out again to keep experimenting on you."

The mention of the doctor's name brought new interest, seeming to wake Caesar up again. "Scheiner? That man is insane. I refused to work with him after the first few demonstrations! He wanted to turn my Hamon into a mass weapon. Against _humans_."

Joseph shrugged, pointing an accusing finger at him. "That's not what he told me. He said you advanced his research 'beyond his initial goals'. I saw the proof of it myself: Hamon bullets and armored vampires, just to start."

Caesar folded his own arms, flinching at how cold the metal one felt against his skin at first, but he recovered quick enough to look away dismissively. "I gave him nothing," he repeated.

Joseph groaned, rolling his eyes, and was about to get up and put some distance between them before he remembered the last conversation he'd had with him, the fight that'd driven him to fight the Pillar Men alone and had almost resulted in his death. If Caesar was telling the truth and not just trying to sass or guilt him earlier, that was one of the last things he remembered. As the one who knew otherwise, he knew it was up to him to finally settle the matter after so long. There were so many things he'd been wishing he could say to him…and then he had the chance he never thought would come. But first thing was first.

"I launched Kars into space."

Caught off guard, Caesar shot his gaze back over to him. "You what?"

Joseph grinned, uncrossing his arms to point upward. "He's still up there, probably still alive. I just wanted you to know that he paid for what he did to your family. To _our_ families...and he's going to be paying for it for a while still."

Caesar was silent for a while, but at least his shoulders had relaxed upon hearing the news. Finally, he looked over at him out of the corner of his eye. "Thank you. Now, finally, our fathers and their fathers can be at peace." He let out a long, tired breath and finally let his arms fall in his lap. "But I can't say the same for myself." Joseph narrowed his eyes at him, but couldn't think of how to ask about that one before Caesar finally turned his head to look at him again, a sincere frown across his face. "You said you thought I was dead, but I _was_ dead. I could see it before me; I was standing on the Stairway to Heaven…and then it was like I was pulled off. Everything was dark. I could feel nothing, but I heard mumbles like I was underwater." He shifted, looking down at his metal arm. "Then I heard your voice mumbling and I thought I went to Hell instead."

Joseph lurched forward to plant his hands on the truck bed in front of him, his eyebrows sharply angled in outrage. "What!?"

Caesar shrugged casually. "I knew I died."

"But you thought you were in Hell because _I_ was there!?" Slowly, a tired smirk grew across the Italian's face, but it didn't make Joseph's prosthetic stop clicking to know it was a joke. At least, not at first. He groaned, leaning back again to hold his chin in his hand with his elbow propped on his knee. He guessed it was a little funny. "That was a cheap shot," he muttered, pouting.

Caesar looked away again, off into the middle distance as if he wanted something out there he couldn't grab. "What I'm saying is…no one should have to die twice. I would have been content with my ancestors, where I belonged."

Joseph harrumphed, rolling his eyes as he stood up again to go to the wall against the cab when he could feel the truck's momentum slowing. "Why are you so dramatic?" he grumbled while pressing his ear against it to see if there was trouble, "you don't belong in Heaven if you're not dead."

Caesar didn't reply and Joseph chose not to push it. It had to be a lot to take in, and they both had other things to worry about. After hearing nothing in the cab, he moved to the tailgate, where he knelt down to peer outside.


End file.
